I submitted a paper to one of Elsevier’s journals. After a couple of days, its status changed to “with editor”. But now after about ten days from the submission date, it changed to “Decision in Process”. Is there any hope that it will not be rejected?
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What makes you think that it would be rejected? – Peaceful Jan 31 '17 at 17:38
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@Peaceful some links mentioned that there are some other status between these two steps. For example please see: academia.stackexchange.com/questions/12497/… – moksef Jan 31 '17 at 17:42
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1Maybe because "Decision in progess" is described on Elsevier's support website as: "The final Handling Editor in a journal with split decision and author notification tasks has submitted a decision but the Administrative Editor has not yet notified the author". And it seems to be one of the last steps of the process. – FuzzyLeapfrog Jan 31 '17 at 17:46
If there is a decision before it was sent to reviewers, it usually means a desk-rejection. This is not necessarily a bad outcome! It means you won't waste time on a review process that is not likely to be favorable and you can move straight ahead to another journal.
Other more rare outcomes are possible, though: they could issue a "reject and resubmit" if they think the paper would be a good candidate for review after some major changes were made. They could also be inviting you to a special issue etc.
But most likely outcome is desk rejection.
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1A "resubmit to journal X" is also possible, if editor thinks it fits better. But the most likely outcome is desk rejection. – FuzzyLeapfrog Jan 31 '17 at 19:57
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1I had (several years ago) a paper accepted in 2 days: we guessed the editor must have functioned as referee. This type of quick turnaround can occur - I've received referee reports within a week - although most referees are admittedly rarely that quick. – user67075 Feb 1 '17 at 2:37
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@ZeroTheHero Anything is possible! I'm sure it depends on the journal. The journals I know have never accepted a regular submission without going through the R&R process. – sessej Feb 1 '17 at 16:18
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@sessej Yes I doubt my specific one-time example is the rule, but it ** can ** happen. – user67075 Feb 1 '17 at 17:14
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1Any publication where that can happen is a publication not worth publishing in, IMHO. [referring to the editor acting as referee. It's possible all reviewers act really really quickly and agree to accept, but that's extremely unlikely.] – Fred Douglis Mar 10 '17 at 17:17
Just "An editor has begun a decision but chosen to save and resume later."
